Joe Bongers

“Bereavement is not the truncation of married love, but one of its regular phases---like the honeymoon. What we want is to live our marriage well and faithfully through that phase too.”
― C. S. Lewis

“Wallace Stegner was a man who lived under the obligation of trying his best to be a “good man,” and his writing was part and parcel of that effort. For him, the individual, insofar as his or her capabilities allow, must not only take charge of his or her own destiny, but take on the responsibility of contributing to the welfare of others in family, community and society.”
― Jackson J. Benson, Wallace Stegner: His Life and Work

“It’s been said that we pass through life with a diminishing portfolio of enthusiasms. My problem is having had so many to start out with. Now, at the age of fifty-six, I have painting, my four beautiful children, fly casting, writing, friends, wing shooting, printing, family and extended family, cooking, and Marusia, the light of my life, not at all necessarily in that order. The problem, if you want to call it that, is there is no time left for things that don’t matter. Years ago, after watching someone waste endless hours on some pointless project, Tom McGuane observed that the fellow obviously believed the average human lifetime to be ten thousand years. I’m treating it as if there were less than a minute to go.”
― Harry Middleton, The Earth Is Enough: Growing Up in a World of Flyfishing, Trout & Old Men

“I've known cowards and I've known heroes," he says. "The heroes were always ruled by their hearts; the cowards by their brains. Don't forget that. Heroes don't calculate or calibrate. They do what is right.”
― Nickolas Butler, The Hearts of Men